In the News

In Jagatsinghpur, India, critics are concerned that a lack of Urdu textbooks is driving Muslim students away from government-run schools to study in madrassas.

Bertelsmann AG, the German conglomerate that owns Random House, is shutting down all thirty-six branches of its Beijing 21st Century Book chain. Its Chinese book-club business, with 1.5 million members, will continue to operate.

The house where Ted Hughes grew up, in the West Yorkshire village of Mytholmroyd, is now available for rent by vacationers and writers seeking a retreat; proceeds benefit the Elmet Trust, which is hosting a seven-day festival in October to mark the tenth anniversary of Hughes’s death.

Encounter Books has decided to stop sending advance copies of its titles to the New York Times for review. As the publisher, Roger Kimball, explains, “Why bother to send them books that they studiously ignore?”

The nonprofit organization Got Books is seeking submissions of names of American servicemen and women from the Canton, Massachusetts, area who are currently stationed overseas and might like a free shipment of books.